As Keith was preparing to leave Sarria this morning, he was trying to take a picture of a black cat and the cat shied away and ran off. Keith turned to see what scared it away—thinking that maybe someone on a bike riding the Camino or something spooked it–but instead it was a herd of about 15 cows. After a while a couple dogs came after them and a long while after them a shepherd came through, too. He had an odd 2-pointed stick that he was carrying.

On the way to Morgade from Sarria the first bit was kinda tough because he was pushing himself and not stopping when he needed to, but once he realized he just needed to break a little more regularly things went much better. “You just go down these little lanes and if you get tired you walk over to the stone wall, plunk your pack down and sit for a while.”

He likes the area he’s in now more for walking and it reminds him in some ways of the Northwest with hills and trees for shade. He says that it’s been a nice change from the other stretch of the Camino which was flat. A way that it’s unlike home is the New Englandy/Irishy kind of rock walls. Also, instead of crumbling adobe and red tile roofs like the first region of the walk–he’s now seeing granite blocks and black slate roofs. This area was settled by Celts (explaining the rock walls) and at one point on the trail he even heard someone playing bagpipes.

He took a picture of a couple cats on the way out of town this morning in a store window. And saw a bunch of dogs throughout the day. The Camino goes through some people’s barn yards and fields and increases the odds of bumping into people’s pets and livestock. There was one guy that had a little motorcycle and was accompanied by a huge German Shepard (with a head twice the size as the ones here at home) and the dog loved the motorcycle and kept running ahead of it and “enjoying the hell out of it.” Another guy must’ve been on the Camino, but was also traveling with a dog. Another traveller he saw was a woman pulling a little homemade wagon with all her stuff in it. (Reminds me of Jim’s skateboard suggestion)

He arrived in Morgade with a few others—a woman named Debbie from Sacramento and an Australian woman named Fran. (Fran works for the Catholic Church and it’s her job to perform audits to ensure funds get to the right programs.) Since they walked in at the same time—they sat down together for some food. Keith had an omelet and a beer. Later that night for dinner they had bacon (approaching American bacon – at least it tasted like it), eggs, and fries (apparently something just to avoid throughout any visit to Spain).

He was pretty excited that you could have laundry done instead of him having to hand-wash his things and hang them to dry overnight. Sometimes you really need a good machine cleaning. :) This time he didn’t have a private room, but instead shared a room that accommodated six people. Since him and the other two ladies were there first they had the pick of the beds. He chose one by the window that had a little extra space for his pack. He was happy to report that the place seemed very clean. Eventually a German woman and a couple from Wisconsin also joined the shared room. It turns out that both of the man and the woman from Wisconsin had the same exact sleeping bag as Keith. (Note: We’ll post a list of supplies at the end of the blog once the trip is over and include as much info on items as we can in case anyone else can benefit from the info.)